Research Themes

Our lab is motivated by the dual challenges of biodiversity loss and environmental change. We harness the rapid growth of environmental and biodiversity data to understand how insects respond to global change, and to translate that understanding into conservation and climate adaptation practice. We spend much of our time developing quantitative models and data science workflows to make sense of these complex datasets.

Insect declines & climate adaptation

A Halloween pennant dragonfly (Celithemis eponina) perched on a plant stem — Dragonflies are among the insect groups we study.

Insect declines are documented across the globe and tree of life, but there is an enormous amount of variation in which species are in decline and where these declines are most severe. We document population and community trends of insects across space and time in an effort to quantify drivers of declines and how these vary across life history traits to inform assemblage-level conservation. Ongoing projects are focused on quantifying the effects of extreme weather events and agricultural intensification on insect population dynamics.

Phenology & phenotypic responses to environmental change

Drawer of pinned ground beetle (Carabus goryi) specimens imaged for a computer-vision body-size measurement pipeline — Ground beetle (*Carabus goryi*) specimens imaged for automated, computer-vision body-size measurement.

We integrate observational datasets with fine-resolution climate and land-use data to quantify how insect phenology and body size respond to changing climates and urbanization, and how those responses are conditioned by species traits. Current work uses computer vision to measure body size across tens of thousands of ground beetles, linking phenotypic sensitivity to temperature to population and community trends. We are also actively working on furthering understanding of how extreme weather events impact insect range shifts and population dynamics.

Biodiversity informatics & Macroecology

Map of estimated Odonata (dragonfly and damselfly) species richness — Estimated Odonata species richness in the Australasia realm.

We develop statistical methods, open-source software, and machine-learning pipelines that make natural history collections and participatory science data (e.g., iNaturalist, eBird) more useful for ecological research. This particularly includes building tools for correcting bias in presence-only data and publishing workflows of making images of insect specimens AI-ready. We are also highly engaged with understanding the strengths and biases of the iNaturalist platform. Our work in biodiversity informatics positions us well to study the patterns and processes of insect diversity at macroecological scales, such as our work documenting the diversity of Odonata at the extent of biogeographic realms.

Urban ecology

A White-dotted Prominent moth (Nadata gibbosa) resting on a light-trap sheet — Sampling moths across urban-to-rural gradients.

We study how urbanization reshapes insect communities across life stages, using custom-built light and frass traps paired with computer-vision identification pipelines to quantify the effects of urban development on moth abundance, diversity, and phenology. Cities create environments in which insects face multifaceted and interacting stressors. Much remains unknown about the importance of these different stressors on population and community dynamics, particularly in tropical and sub-tropical environments.

See our publications on Google Scholar →